<\/p>\n
Danielle Fishel<\/strong> opened up on her podcast about Whitney Leavitt\u2019<\/strong>s shocking Dancing With the Stars<\/em> elimination<\/a>. And she didn\u2019t hold back.<\/p>\n “Whitney is one of the most beautiful dancers I have ever seen in 20 years of Dancing With the Stars<\/em>,” the 44-year-old said on her podcast<\/a>, praising Leavitt\u2019s talent and her work ethic throughout season 34. “Mark [Ballas]<\/strong> has really pushed her. Whitney [wanted] that.”<\/p>\n As someone who\u2019s watched the show for decades, Fishel said Leavitt, 32, was built to be pushed as hard as Ballas, 39, pushed her this season. But even with all that talent, she noted, “Being one of the best dancers is never a guarantee that you’re gonna win.”<\/p>\n Fishel was genuinely surprised Leavitt didn’t make the finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I did not think Whitney was going to win Dancing With the Stars<\/em>, even though I think she’s one of the best dancers,” she explained. But she absolutely expected the reality TV star to make it to the finale.<\/p>\n As for why<\/em> Leavitt was eliminated during the semi-finals, Fishel has a theory. It has to do with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/em>. Leavitt’s final package was set up around the premiere of the Hulu series, which could have impacted the timing of her elimination.<\/p>\n “What makes the most compelling storytelling was for Whitney to go home tonight, In the end, Fishel said the decision fit neatly into the show\u2019s pattern of drama-driven editing.<\/p>\n “What makes the most captivating TV is seeing all of that and then immediately seeing that person go home,” the Boy Meets World<\/em> star concluded. “I was hoping I was wrong, but I was not.”<\/p>\n Who will take home the Mirrorball? Watch the Dancing With the Stars<\/em> Season 34 finale Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC and stream on Disney+.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Nov 22, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Danielle Fishel opened up on her podcast about Whitney Leavitt\u2019s shocking Dancing With the Stars elimination. And she didn\u2019t hold back. “Whitney is one of the most beautiful dancers I have ever seen in 20 years of Dancing With the Stars,” the 44-year-old said on her podcast, praising Leavitt\u2019s talent and her work ethic throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2172479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[41508,50227,360667,342154,359955],"class_list":["post-2172478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-danielle-fishel","tag-leavitt","tag-whitney","tag-whitney-leavitt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Why-Danielle-Fishel-Thinks-Whitney-Leavitt-Never-Stood-a-Chance.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172480,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172478\/revisions\/2172480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
she added, elaborating how the storylines matched up perfectly with each show.<\/p>\n